28 Sep My real life.

I’ve just done that thing.

I’ve just sat in the bathroom, whilst I waited for the bath to fill, and scrolled through twitter on my phone.

Looking through the twitter feed of the last 48 hours, I felt sad. And just a little bit sorry for myself… For all the things I haven’t done this weekend.

I wasn’t part of a large theatrical city-based game, which looked both good fun and great quality, that friends of mine had created and produced.

Today, I am not at the 50th birthday celebrations for the theatre where I have been lucky enough the find some work in the last few years.

I didn’t meet up with my friend from Zambia, who has now flown back across the globe.

I didn’t watch what sounded like a brilliant film on BBC 2 last week.

I could go on.

It is so easy to get sucked into the myth of ‘better than my life’, ‘more exciting than my life’. I find it so easy to, without any thought – or conscious decision – to get swallowed by the idea that everyone else is having a great time, whilst I sit at home doing chores, and serving others.

It is important to remember that this is a load of crap.

That I chose my life. And it is good.

And people rarely use their 144 characters to talk about the ordinary parts of their lives.

Or maybe, people rarely use their 144 characters to talk about their real lives.

This is what I chose to do this weekend:

I had brunch with my family.

I weathered a large strop from a certain (junior) member of my family and went to Dobbies to look at paving anyway. It wasn’t that exciting, but it means that I can actually move forward with my plans for the garden, which mean that eventually I can grow more flowers (exciting) and have more people for food in my garden (double exciting). And the stroppy member of the team sorted herself out and we managed to have a fairly adult conversation about it.

I went to a leaving party for some friends who have been incredibly dear to us for the best part of 20 years and are now moving to pastures new. We ate cake and watched our collection of children (a surprising large number between this group of friends) play on a bouncy castle and dance together.

My Dad came round, unexpectedly, for a cup of tea. He played British Bulldog in the garden with Ed, to both of their delight.

I watched Strictly Come Dancing (twice) with my four favourite people. Throughout the Saturday night episode I hugely enjoyed a continual text conversation with one of my very closest friends, who’s sister is one of the contestants (-much kudos in our household).

I served on the kids work at church. Anyone who knows me well will know this is not my favourite thing to do (and here I am being generous with my understatement), but it is done for another month and it was actually fine!

I did the washing, and made the tea, and sorted out scraps between siblings, and tidied the kitchen.

I had lunch, and read my book, and hunted for conkers, and rode my daughters’  bike, and chatted with my husband, and tickled my 5 year old son.

To snap myself out of the undertones of self-pity…To break free from the strains of melancholy I can begin to hear when I feel a little bit left out of some fun someone somewhere else is having whilst I watch tv….

Sometimes I just need to bring all the good things, the normal things, the messy things, the real things of my life in front of me to remind me that my actual life is pretty great. And I am very grateful for it.